Well, holiday card. It came to me electronically from ADS-Ler Wilson Gray, a friend for, oh, 50-some years now:

(#1)

The message is in Spanish (‘happy holidays and a prosperous new year’). The main figure appears to be an oddly costumed Brobdingnagian Clone Santa (Clone as in the Castro Clone of the 1970s), complete with The Clone ‘Stache and the Cruise of Death gaze, plus a red Santa cap — and three miniature replicas of himself in various costumes (one in drag) but all with the ‘stache, plus what appears to be a shoe of some sort concealing his junk. Meanwhile, Santa is displaying his manly legs and a bit of his manly chest, while wearing what looks like a slinky patterned smoking jacket or robe (rather than the expected form-fitting t-shirt, leather jacket, or plaid shirt, worn with tight-fitting Levi’s).

There’s snow and evergreens — well, it’s Christmas — but also some imposing non-generic snowy mountains looming in the background.

It turns out that we’re in Catalonia, in the Pyrenees, but that doesn’t explain a lot of what we see in #1. On the other hand, we could do a lot worse than visit Barcelona for the holiday season.

Two recent Zippys, in which a Dingburg Seinfeld cult re-works episodes from the tv show in dark ways:

(#1)

(#2)

Griffith uses the very same artwork for all eight panels, varying only which character speaks and what they say. The resulting effect is that the artwork serves only to convey that we’re in Dingburg. Meanwhile, the stories veer far from the originals.

More raunchy Christmas cheer: over on AZBlogX, a Lucas studios XXX-mas scene with an extraordinarily tattoed Dylan James Santa taking down his elf Ace Era (both in seasonally appropriate costume for their roles). A cropped version of an oral encounter, focused on James and his tats:

James in his Santa cap (and nothing else), Era in a sleazy red onesie. The full image is on AZBlogX, plus a still from an anal encounter, and decorous publicity photos of both men, with enthusiastic copy from Lucas about them.

A few days ago I awoke to the music of Ignaz Moscheles (part of the bridge between music of the classical period and music of the romantic period). Yesterday it was another composer with an interesting name, Donnacha Dennehy, also in a zone between genres: this time, between contemporary concert music and performance art. I awoke early on during his 1997 composition Junk Box Fraud, an intriguing title (which, as far as I can tell, Dennehy has never been willing to explain).

You can watch a performance by Crash Ensemble on video here. Just over 13 minutes, described as electro-acoustic and mixed media, for two singers/speakers and a chamber ensemble, plus visuals on a screen. Fascinating sonic texture, with outbursts of profanity (the piece begins with “Fuck you” from one of the women) and vocal play that reminds me of George Crumb. If you’re listening for melodies, Dennehy’s not your man, but the piece is riveting, assaultive, playful, and funny.

Mark Liberman posted this on Language Log on the 19th, with a link to a 2004 posting of his and with the video of Monty Python’s “Crunchy Frog” sketch. Ordinarily, I’d just add that link to my Page on postings about xkcd cartoons, but this time I want to elaborate some on my own.